somewhere i have never travelled
by sea salt
Summary: Missing scenes from the end of Saiyuki Reload. Sanzo has to relearn his path.


**Title:** somewhere i have never travelled  
**Genre:** Gen  
**Rating:** PG-13 (language)  
**Characters:** The ikkou, Sanzo-centric  
**Word Count:** 3674  
**Summary:** Missing scenes from the end of Saiyuki Reload. Sanzo has to relearn his path.

* * *

The game of rock-paper-scissors dwindles to a stop, and when Hakkai allows his arm to fall, arches his back so his spine pops and cracks as he officially declares that they all lose, Sanzo snorts and thinks without meaning to that kind of a conclusion is really not surprising at all. The night is a sticky kind of hot, almost suffocating in its humidity, and Sanzo lies in the mud bleeding and aching as sweat beads on his brow and gathers in the shallow dip of his throat. He realizes that it must be summer, now, and thinks abruptly of the Chang'an Temple, of his back flat on top of creaking floorboards and the sound of ice clicking against glass.

Eventually, they have to move.

Sanzo's arms are shaking when he pushes himself up and out of the dirt, clenches his teeth and digs his fingers into the ground. Stones and grit gather beneath his nails as the world blurs out of focus and snaps back again, suddenly vivid and almost intrusive in its clarity. He blinks, breathes, and tries very hard not to fall back over as he coughs and spits, the saliva dangling from his lips too thick and a little pink, even in the dark.

"Sexy," Gojyo says as he rolls onto his knees, wrapping one arm around his ribs and turning his wince into wagging eyebrows and a slow, shit-eating grin. Sanzo wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, wrinkles his nose and scowls but says nothing because the heavy tang of copper still tastes too fresh on his tongue. Hakkai chuckles, and there is blood there, too, smeared across his teeth and moving in slow lines down his face. He doesn't wipe it away, not yet, and is the second one to actually make it to his feet after Goku, swaying before he has to drop his hands to his knees, his laughter breathless and quiet and strangely genuine.

"My," he says. "What a mess we all are."

"Speak for yourself," Sanzo says, and doesn't accept Goku's outstretched hand as he finally heaves himself up. Goku moves closer anyways, not quite touching but near enough for Sanzo grab. His eyes gleam bright in the dark, more yellow than gold, and there are still tremors stuttering along the lines of his arms, making his fingers clench and twitch as the adrenaline fades. Sanzo leans back and presses his shoulder against the trunk of a tree, digging one hand into the sleeve of his robe and tugging free his nearly empty pack of cigarettes. It takes too long for him to pull one out and even longer to light it, his fingers still stiff and aching from the hard kick of Gat's gun, but there are no snide remarks from Gojyo or pokes from Goku to hurry him along, and he takes two, long pulls off the filter before making any attempt to move again.

"Let's go," he says, stepping forward and nearly tumbling back down to the ground when his left knee buckles beneath him. Goku is suddenly there at his side, swinging Sanzo's arm up and over his shoulder as Gojyo steps close, gripping Sanzo's left wrist and mirroring the action. Sanzo sneers and growls at them both to fuck off but doesn't try to wiggle away, and Gojyo scoffs, his words muffled around the unlit cigarette clenched tight between his teeth.

"Looks like we ended up with the baggage after all."

"_Sanzooo,_" Goku wines, his voice falling right next to Sanzo's ear. "You're way too heavy."

"I'm sure you'll both manage," Hakkai says, looking over his shoulder at them, smiling slowly as his eyes blink shut. "But do be careful, the baggage does seem to be a little delicate right now."

Sanzo breathes in hard through his nose, coughs, and spits a bloody wad of mucus onto the ground. "I fucking hate you all."

Gojyo laughs, lifting up his chin and shaking his head so his hair falls away from his face. "C'mon, Sanzo-sama," he says, boosting Sanzo up and tightening his grip on his waist to stop him from tipping over onto Goku's shoulder spikes. "Left foot, right foot."

The trek is more difficult in the dark and Sanzo legs do not want to move at all, cracking at the knees with each step he manages to take. The heels of his boots are thick and rough and hold tight against the slope of moss and crumbling dirt, but his feet drag heavily against the ground and his toes keep catching on stones and twisted roots.

"_Holy shit,_" Gojyo says when Sanzo nearly pitches himself forward for the sixth time. "Lift your fucking feet."

"Piss off. I didn't ask you for any help."

"Gojyo," Goku says, and they have really been traveling together for too long because they both simultaneously grip Sanzo's arms and lift him up and over the gnarled remains of a tree with no visual signal passing between them.

Hakkai travels ahead, disappearing from sight for minutes at a time before doubling back and appearing from around curve of a trunk or a boulder, pushing branches out of his face and holding them back as Gojyo and Goku drag Sanzo pass. The blood on the bridge of his nose is beginning to dry and flake, and though his shoulder is still bleeding sluggishly the cloth from his collarbone to his elbow is already browning and growing stiff.

"Almost there," he says, bracing a hand against Gojyo's shoulder as he walks by and starts to slip in the muck. Sanzo sways and falls against them both before Goku tightens his grip and pulls him back onto his feet.

They are solid, living walls around him, and Sanzo falls unconscious twenty yards away from where Hakuryu waits for their return, nestled beneath the cool damp overhang of a log. He is dimly aware that his knees never crack against the ground, and that when the cigarette falls from his lips and catches against the folds of his robe, a hand there to quickly brush it away before the cloth ignites.

* * *

Sanzo dreams of the dark, of Goku reaching towards him and of his own fingers stretching out and closing around nothing. Ukoku's voice is hot against the shell of his ear, and when Sanzo turns to look at him his face is a mess of blood and ripped tissue and gleaming, white bone.

_What if Genjo Sanzo never existed?_

He shudders, and wakes up enough to watch as the sun slowly begins to crest over the curve of the horizon from beneath his lowered eyelashes. The jeep reeks of blood and sweat and Sanzo is hunched over, leaning against the door with the handle digging hard into his hip, his legs aching at the knees from being bent too close to his body for too long.

Next to him Hakkai shifts, and Sanzo blinks open one eye to look at him as long, cold fingers touch the back of his hand and slip upwards. Hakkai is squinting, his monocle flashing white as he tips his head into the shade of the headrest, lips pressing into a tight, thin line as he squeezes Sanzo's wrist.

"Fractured," Sanzo says, shrugging one shoulder. "Arms aren't bad. Legs are more fucked up."

Hakkai makes a humming sound in his throat, nods once and doesn't bother to glance at Sanzo's face. "I'm not surprised. I wasn't able to heal them as well as I would have liked to."

"What are we still doing here?"

"_Well_," Hakkai says, his voice slipping into a smooth, condescending tone that already has Sanzo bristling. "I thought it might be better to stop before I passed out at the wheel and drove us off the road."

Sanzo squints through the sunlight, and thinks that Hakkai looks too pale, that even with a lack of his sleep his eyes shouldn't be so watery and glazed. His gaze flickers down, and though Hakkai's hands don't seem to be shaking, annoyance wells up in the pit of Sanzo's stomach, heavy and sharp.

He scowls, teeth grinding together as tugs his arm away, his hand disappearing beneath the fold of his sleeve. "Then stop wasting you energy now that you're awake again. We need to get moving."

He closes his eyes and listens as Hakkai exhales—can recognize the distinct, wispy puff of air sound that he makes whenever he's actually amused—and twitches when fingertips brush against the back of his neck. Warmth blooms out along his skin, traveling over his shoulders and down his back, and Sanzo just manages to catch on the edge of his senses the feeling of Hakkai's aura flaring out as he begins to channel his chi.

Although Sanzo has said nothing of it since Goku tossed him over his shoulder like a ragdoll, his spine still feels like a hot rod of iron chafing beneath his skin. Hakkai keeps his hands against him just long enough for the pain to ease into bearable, steady throb, and pulls away.

Sanzo shifts, presses his back further into his seat and stretches out his legs as much as he can. He eyes fall momentarily on the side mirror, reflecting the hunched up shapes of Goku and Gojyo, still unconscious in the back.

"Wake me when we get back to the town," he says, and falls asleep as the jeep begins to rumble beneath him.

* * *

Sanzo can remember the slow flicker in Gat's eyes, the smooth drop of his shoulders and the calm, accepting expression on his face as Sanzo turned away from him and said, "No one can use that gun but you."

It hadn't been a lie, really, because of course Sanzo could fire the weapon but his arms were too thin, wrists too delicate and days later he still feels the ache from it coiled in his bones. He notices the smudge of gunpowder against his fingertips, sticking in the lines of his knuckles and caught beneath his skin, and he is coming to accept that there it will remain no matter how many times he scrubs at his hands.

The pistol sits on the bedside table, next to the overflowing ashtray, half-empty can of beer and a nearly full glass of water, and Sanzo stares and considers both taking it with him and leaving it behind. He pushes himself up onto his elbow and reaches for it, leaving it un-cocked but touching his finger to the trigger. The weight of it in his hand is strange, different and wrong, the leather grip molded to fit against shorter, thicker fingers than his own. And he has never felt any need to carry another weapon, but there is something undeniably satisfying in knowing that this was what he used to rip out that fucking crow's eyes.

Sanzo shakes his head and rubs a hand over his face, and his legs no longer ache when he drops his feet to the floor and walks towards the bathroom.

Gojyo is there when he returns, sitting by the window and drawing his hair back into a tie. Out of the past forty-eight hours Sanzo has spent thirty-nine of them crammed into a small room with the rest of the ikkou as they slept and healed and bitched at one another. He clenches his jaw, sighs, long and heavy, before snatching up his newspaper from the table, making a disgusted sound in the back of his throat and scowling when Gojyo looks at him and blinks.

"I'm not even fucking doing anything."

"You're here. And you reek. Go shower."

"In a bit. Goku and Hakkai are bringing food back."

"Did you tell them to get cigarettes?"

Gojyo's eye twitches, once, before he grins, wide and lopsided and crosses his arms behind his head. "'Course. You know I'm always thinking of you."

Sanzo shakes open his paper and reaches out towards Gat's gun. Gojyo makes a sharp, sputtering sound when Sanzo picks it up and rests it on top of his bent knee, and he smirks slightly as he slips his last cigarette between his teeth.

But he knows Gojyo, knows the familiar way he pops his joints, knuckles, elbows, spine and neck, knows how his leg bounces the way that his fingers will drum against any surface, three times, before he feels the need to spew out some new bullshit.

So when Gojyo says, "You know," Sanzo is already irritated and waiting. He looks over his paper as Gojyo kicks one long leg up to rest the heel of his boot against the pane of the window. His eyes are dark, and look almost brown in the light of the dim little room.

"I probably owe you a punch to the face," he says.

The newspaper drops to Sanzo's lap. He doesn't smile, but there is something in how his eyes narrow, how his lips twist around his cigarette before he brings his hand up to cover them that makes Gojyo snort and flash his teeth.

"You can try," Sanzo says as he exhales, tipping up his chin, inviting the challenge. Gojyo brings a hand up to his shoulder, stretches his neck, and shrugs.

"Nah, not really worth the effort anymore." He rocks back on his chair until only two legs are touching the floor, and peers at Sanzo through a haze of smoke as Sanzo taps ash from his cigarette and pretends not to notice. He thinks, abruptly, of the sound of a lighter flicking open and shut, of brittle splinters pushing up beneath the bed of his nails.

"Hey," Gojyo says, and Sanzo looks at him.

"What?"

"Did you ever get around to fucking Hazel?"

Sanzo chokes, unthinkingly whips up Gat's gun, and fires.

"Motherfucker—!" Gojyo drops to the floor as the window behind him is completely blown out, the center framing cracking apart with the force of the bullet, part of the wall being taken with it and crumbling away.

The door whines on its hinges, and Sanzo hears Hakkai say, "Oh, my," and the sound of Goku catching himself between a snicker and an awkward, hesitating noise. Sanzo's only response is to pinch the bridge of his nose, Gat's enormous black gun still in his hand, as Gojyo sits on the floor with glass scattered around him, doubled over with his arms wrapped around his stomach, laughing so hard that he's almost crying.

* * *

They bring back white, sticky rice mixed with green beans, soy sauce and cut chicken. It's a simple meal and Goku doesn't complain but pokes at it with his chopsticks before eating, and Hakkai laughs and promises that he will cook something better once they move on to a larger town.

The food is devoured in less than twenty minutes, and Hakkai gathers the plates and takes them back downstairs as Gojyo leaves to shower, chucking his dirty t-shirt at Goku's head before quickly ducking behind the door and locking it.

Goku bats the clothing away, wrinkling his nose, and moves to sit on the end of Sanzo's bed, legs crossed and balancing a bowl of rice on his knee as he tells Sanzo about what it was like to travel without him. He speaks of a small, demon village in the desert, and Sanzo pauses as he knocks free a new cigarette, lifting an eyebrow as he slips the filter between his lips.

"There was a girl," Goku says, and stops. Colour rises to his cheeks, and his lips twist as his bright eyes flicker down to the nearly empty dish in his hands. He looks wistful, sad and almost embarrassed all at once, and Sanzo smokes and waits and already knows the story, had to deal with Gojyo's not-quite-so-sleazy grin as he explained how Goku was finally becoming a man and Hakkai's soft, smooth voice saying that it must have been hard for him.

Goku shakes himself, and says, "What did you do, Sanzo? What was traveling with Hazel and Gat like?"

Sanzo rolls his eyes. "Annoying."

Goku smiles, all teeth, and there is something about it, the way that his eyes crinkle or how he lifts his eyebrows, that makes Sanzo thinks of Gojyo. "Worst than us?"

"You have no idea."

"What do you think happened to him?"

"No way to know." He remembers Hazel's fluttering cape stretching out behind him, of his own hands going up to his throat and Ukoku's widening eyes. "It was a long way for him to fall."

"Maybe we should have looked for him."

"Right, because just us crawling down the fucking mountain wasn't hard enough. He made his own choice."

"Mm." Goku stretches out his legs, and the heel of his foot softly bumps against Sazno's ankle. Sanzo shifts and clicks his tongue against his teeth, considers reaching for his fan and smacking Goku right off the mattress.

"I kept thinking about it," Goku says.

"You what?"

"What we were talking about before I—just. Before. About what I would do if you died, if you left. Remember?"

Sanzo's chin dips downwards, and maybe the motion is meant to be a nod. He crushes out his cigarette, eyes hooded and dark beneath the low sweep of his lashes.

"Yeah," he says, and tries very hard not to think of blood spattering against uneven cobblestone, of the dead weight of Goku's body slumping against his. He glances up, and sometimes he still expects Goku to look like he did when he first found him, long hair, wide eyes, a stupid, almost pathetic kind hope etched out across his face. But the boy in front of him is too tall, gangly in the awkward kind of way that most teenagers are and no longer stares at Sanzo like he is something brilliant and strange and entirely unexpected.

He doesn't know when that changed, when Goku turned to him one day and smiled and stopped acting like the moment that he blinked or looked away that Sanzo would be gone.

"Guess you found your answer," Sanzo says, but drops his eyes and isn't sure if Goku hears him over the sound of the door creaking open when Hakkai returns, balancing four plates of steaming, fresh pie in his hands.

* * *

They leave before the sun rises, sit on the outside porch for nearly half an hour in the dark consuming their small breakfast of orange juice, black coffee and dry toast with butter. A damp mist rolls in off the mountains, and for the first time in nearly four days Sanzo feels comfortably cool as water begins to bead on the ends of his hair. Hakuryu flies off and returns with a small shrew in his talons, and Sanzo lazily watches as he nearly swallows the entire rodent whole.

"It's like a re-enactment of Goku," Gojyo says, and squawks when Goku twists his fist into the small of his back. Sanzo kicks them both off the porch as Hakkai extends his hand and run his thumb along the fridge of Hakuryu's spine. Hakuryu stretches his long neck, and coos once before fluttering away and transforming into the jeep.

The drive is silent for the first few hours apart from the crunch of gravel beneath Hakuryu's wheels and the soft, drowsy sounds Gojyo and Goku make as they slowly drift in and out of sleep. At some point Hakkai clears his throat and glances at Sanzo out of the corner of his eye, smiling slightly as he asks, "Where are we headed?"

Sanzo's expression goes flat, and he flicks his cigarette. "What, do you just want to hear me say it?"

"There are two villages we can stop at next, one we'll reach by nightfall and the other tomorrow afternoon."

"The closer one!" Goku says suddenly, launching himself forward and leaning out from the space between the seats. "You said you would cook something, Hakkai, and the food at the last place was so _boring!_"

"Well, yes, I suppose I did," Hakkai says. "Sanzo?"

"Whatever will shut the chimp up. Sit back down," Sanzo says, and attempts to smack Goku over his shoulder. His aim uncoordinated and too high, and Goku ducks beneath his arm before falling easily back onto the bench.

"Hey," he says, and Sanzo's eyes flick up to the rear view mirror. He watches as Goku's reflection crosses his arms behind his head, his elbow nearly catching Gojyo across the jaw. Gojyo kicks out at him, but Goku just sways with the movement, shoves back and continues speaking. "Do you think we'll see that guy again?"

"The Dark Sanzo? Oh, most definitely," Hakkai says, his voice light and easy. Behind him, Gojyo makes a soft _pfft_ sound.

"Yeah, maybe next time our own Sanzo won't bitch out at the last minute."

Sanzo's lip curls. "Useless people don't get to pass criticism."

"It doesn't really matter that much," Goku says just as Gojyo's mouth begins to twist and his fingers start to fold back into his palms. "We'll just have to beat him next time."

Hakkai chuckles. "And I'm sure he'll be looking forward to that meeting just as much as we are."

Sanzo huffs out a breath, slipping his hands into his sleeves and crossing his arms. "Don't sound so casual. Bastard like him still has a card that we don't know about yet."

Hakkai tilts his head, eyes never leaving the road but narrowing slightly. Gojyo and Goku, abruptly, fall silent, and even the low rumble of the jeep's engine seems to dull.

Then Gojyo laughs, overzealous and exaggerated, and pounds his boot against the back of Sanzo's seat.

"Aww, don't get so tense on us there, Sanzo-sama. Not like you'll have to face him all on your lonesome again."

He bats his eyelashes at Sanzo from the mirror, and Hakkai lets out a breathy laugh as Goku leans against the door, one arm stretching out into the breeze and looking entirely too comfortable and satisfied.

Sanzo closes his eyes and says, "Like I give a shit," and wonders when that stopped being true.

* * *

(end)


End file.
